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‘What do you want then, light entertainment? You want everything to be lightly entertaining? Life’s depressing, Martha, this much you will have to learn.’
Martha pouted, ran her hand though her hair and said, with a casual air. ‘Hey, I know what.’
‘What?’ Said Bob cagily, half expecting what was coming next.
‘We could go and have sex somewhere exciting. Somewhere outdoors.’
‘Martha, it’s cold outside. I’m not doing anything like that when it’s cold outside.
Martha gave Bob her best I-just-might-do-that pout, but they both knew this wasn’t very likely, Martha had picked up enough sleazy blokes in her time to know it was over-rated. So Martha sulked, Bob picked up the paper to read his horoscope and there was a silence between them. Not the awkward kind of silence where you can hear yourself breathing and have to talk about the weather just to cover it though, only a momentary lack of anything to say. Seconds passed, the room silent save for the sounds from the next room, Chris and Justin smacking each other’s arses with ping-pong paddles, the familiar thwack of rubber against buttock.
‘The Queen must die.’
Bob blurted this out loudly, with conviction, and apparently out of nothing.
‘God, what is it with you? What is it with you and killing the Queen?’
‘I’ve told you before, this is the only way I’ll ever achieve anything significant. It’s the only way I’ll ever be famous. It’s like Morrissey says; in our lifetime, those who kill, the newsworld hands them stardom…’
‘Don’t quote Morrissey at me!’
Martha glared at Bob to show she meant business, but he launched into a rendition of Last of the Famous International Playboys anyway, just for the hell of it, and started swanning around the room and swaying from side to side like some miserable Mancunian who’s just too literate and sensitive for his own good.
‘I never wanted to kill, I am not naturally evil….’ He moaned.
‘Bob, cut it out!’
‘…such things I do just to make myself more attractive to you. Have I failed?’
‘Bob, I’m warning you…’
‘Ok, ok…’ He said, cutting it out. ‘But, seriously, killing somebody is the only way that someone like me will ever be famous. I’ve got nothing else going for me. I mean look at Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Manson, Gavrilo Princip, Mark Chapman. Do you think that anyone would have remembered them if they hadn’t killed someone? The only….’
‘Ok, Ok,’ said Martha, cutting him off. ‘You go kill the Queen then. But what about tonight, what are we going to do tonight? We have to do something.’
Bob looked lethargically out the window, a bored expression on his bored face. ‘Well,’ he said diplomatically, ‘if you can tell me one thing truly worth doing. One thing. Then we’ll do it, Ok?’
‘One thing worth doing?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And we have to do it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘No matter what it is?’
‘Yeah, but it has to be really worth doing, it has to be something that makes us better people or makes the world a better place or something. Not just something that passes the time.’
'Ok,' she said.
She thought about it. Thought about her wildest fantasies, her craziest notions. All the things she wanted to do, but never had, all the ridiculous notions of having a good time. Then she thought about having no money in Glasgow on a Friday night. She couldn’t think of one thing.
‘Anything on TV?’ She said eventually.
‘Yeah,’ said Bob, a little too quickly, ‘there’s a programme I was wanting to watch on Channel 4 just now. I marked it on the TV guide.' He handed Martha the glossy little magazine, already turned to Friday’s TV. There was a little cross next to a programme on 4, and after that a series of crosses spread amongst the channels marking out the rest of the evening’s entertainment. Martha looked at it, horrified.
‘You had this all planned out already, didn’t you?’
‘No…’ Bob was all innocence, but there was half a smile as he turned on the little ex-rental TV and slumped into the sofa. ‘I mean, if you can think of anything better to do…’ His voice trailed off.
Martha sighed. In reality she didn’t have the energy. After running around after other people all day it was all she could do to put her feet up and watch TV. The thought of going out depressed her. The thought of staying in depressed her. The thought of doing anything depressed her. She sank even deeper into the sofa.
‘Good, it’s just starting.’ Said Bob, forgetting all his assassination plans as he positioned himself in front of the idiot box.
‘I haven’t seen this in ages,’ said Martha, reconciling herself to the idea, ‘I used to love this show.’
‘There’s another one on afterwards as well,’ said Bob, ‘it’s a double-bill.’
‘Oh good.’ Said Martha, without irony.
‘You get any beer?’ Said Bob.
‘Yeah.’ Said Martha.
Bob got up, took two tins of beer from the bag and then snuggled back down into the oversized cushions next to Martha. Martha stretched her legs out and re-positioned herself so she could see the screen better. Martha scratched her nose, Bob opened a beer, and the pterodactyl stared down, omniscient, omnipotent. And, sitting there, under Terry’s protective wings, in the flickering glow of a TV double-bill, it was hard to tell which one was living for the moment and which one wasn’t.
